Military personnel and law enforcement officers frequently carry side arms contained in holsters. The holsters may be fabricated from various materials, including leather, hard plastics, fabrics, etc.
Various devices are employed to secure the side arms against unwanted withdrawal. For example, some devices rely on straps secured by snaps. However, snaps generally function in only one direction, lack durability, are easy to foul, and are difficult to replace when worn or damaged.
Some hard plastic holsters have button activated locks which engage the trigger guard of the side arm. This allows easy access to the grip of the weapon, but requires movement of the trigger finger to actuate the release button. The location of the release button is not adjustable to accommodate different sized hands, and it may also be difficult to operate the release on this style of holster while wearing gloves. Moreover, requiring movements of the trigger finger to deactivate the lock could be dangerous if any such movements continue into the draw action and engage the trigger.
Other devices, such as for example the device described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,467,660 employ a rotatable hood. In its locked position, the hood covers the grip of the side arm. In order to withdraw the side arm from the holster, the hood must first be pushed downwardly to bodily translate it to an unlocked condition, followed by forward rotation to clear it from the grip of the side arm. A drawback with this type of mechanism is that it can be unlocked and rotated open by an inadvertent downward and forward impact against the prominently positioned hood/strap, or worse by a frontal assailant grabbing at the side arm with a “raking” motion.
When withdrawing a side arm restrained by this device, the marksman's hand must land on the top of the hood, push it down and forward then reach back to grip the side arm and draw it out of the holster. This two step procedure is suboptimal when the marksman is confronted with an urgent situation. Another, perhaps faster, procedure is to grip the butt of the side arm and place the thumb on a land fashioned into the side of the hood. To draw the side arm, the thumb first pushes the land down to draw the hood downward into the unlocked position, and then the thumb drives the hood forward, rotating it free of the weapon. This draw method is also suboptimal because the palm of the hand is pulled awkwardly away from the grip of the side arm as the thumb is used to drive the hood forward into the disengaged position. Although the hand remains, generally, in closer proximity to the grip of the side arm, the marksman must still shift the palm of the hand back down to re-grip the side arm, compromising the stability of marksman's hand at this critical moment.
Also, this device positions the pivot point of the hood directly beneath the hood. With this arrangement, the leading edge of the hood moves downwardly as it begins its forward rotation from its location in vertical aligmnent with the pivot point. If the side arm is not fully inserted into the holster and is thus in contact with the hood, the side arm must first be pushed further down into the holster to create enough clearance for the hood to start its rotation.
Many known hood retention devices are restricted in application to rigid or semi-rigid holsters. These types of holsters also typically use screw-type clamping devices to establish a fixed amount of frictional retention to stabilize the side arm in the holster when the hood is in the unlocked position. Rigid or semi-rigid holsters are more expensive to produce than those constructed of sewn fabrics and typically are custom contoured to fit only one make/model of a side arm. However, holsters constructed with flexible sewn fabrics do not have the stability to mount easily operated mechanical weapon retention devices.
Generally stated, the objective of the present invention is to provide an improved quick release device for preventing unwarranted withdrawal of a side arm from a holster which avoids or at least significantly mitigates the above described problems associated with known side arm retention devices.